Week 37: A Plan

I mentioned in a previous letter that the ancient city of Ayuttaya has deep Buddhist roots. This has been evidenced in the work the past couple of weeks. Ah well, slow patches are a given.

Preach My Gospel talks a lot about the essential role that members play in finding and retaining members. We go street contacting every day to find investigators, but referrals from members are infitiely more efficient. Unfortunately, they're also rare. This is partially due to the fact that everyone's family is Buddhist, and people are hesitant to share different beliefs. Also the structure of the church on a branch level is often not quite developed enough to be really effective. And numerous other reasons. These reasons, and some training from leaders led us to the following conclusion: we need to work better with and through the members. They know this, so the next step is to guide them to further action. So, the next few weeks we're going to visit them. All of them, at their homes. The objective is to strengthen the members (that is a large focus), and meet families or other members of the household. We put together a fireside to explain the plan, and it went well. So, there is the near future for us.

A little about recent past:

Sauce is growing spiritually. Very slowly. He's reading the scriptures evry day now, and that is a crucial part of growth. We're currently trying to help him quit smoking. Man, I hope he makes it.

On and Dohn. They're the insurance sales-people I mentioned two weeks ago. They're a married couple with two kids. They work hard and have done well for themselves financially. Their point of concern is getting married by law, due to taxing issues. And more recently the law of tithing. Our focus with them right now is to help them change their perspective of the church to a more spiritual point of view.

We met with a less-active member Sister Gae. According to her record, she was very smart and a golden investigator. She grew way fast, got baptized, and eventually lost the fire. She'll come to some activities and even church sporadically. She said that something always draws her back to church. It's a testimony to me. Our spirits know. Our spirits yearn. The answers are here for those who will seek them.

Thank you all for your love and support!

Elder Parish